4 ms·

FWIW the “boat” is not moving. This is in contrast to Blue Origin’s reusable booster which will literally be landing on a moving boat.

• michaelscott 7y ago
  What do you mean by "not moving"? The platform sat on the surface of an ocean. It's always moving.
  • kolinko 7y ago
    What he means is that the boat is moving up and down but keeps a stationary latitude/longitude. The rocket has static landing coordinates, and if the boat were to move a few meters to either side it would miss it.
    • jiofih 7y ago
      It’s nearly impossible to stay put in the sea where waves and swell are meters high. The boat actually does try to stand still, for which they developed their own positioning / thrust system, but the tolerance is something like 3m-6m with the rocket adjusting its path on the fly. But there are definitely no “static coordinates”, it would have to move a lot more than a few meters for the rocket to miss, and it would be due to trajectory and fuel constraints rather than ability to maneuver.
    • celticninja 7y ago
      I would suggest the boat is always moving to be able to stay in the same place
    • bdamm 7y ago
      SpaceX is almost certainly using an ILS-type radio system for the final 100 meters, both on the boat and on land. GPS just isn't quite good enough, especially out on the ocean where there are no WAAS base stations to cover up GPS' flaws.